Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
binge drinking overall; nearly 10 percent of us admit drinking like fish, which according to
scientists means two or more drinks per day.) We're also number one—sadly—in driving
under the influence. At last count, the state had more than 13,000 taverns, by far the most
per capita in the country, in fact per person
three times
as many. We have more bars and
taverns than grocery stores. One town of 69,000 in Wisconsin, it was reported, had more
bars than in all of Memphis!
THE BUTTER BATTLE
You doubt Wisconsin's a dairy state? Consider the Butter Battle, or Oleo Wars.
Oleomargarine was developed in 1895. It would take until 1967—that's right—that
selling or buying the creamy concoction in this state wasn't a
crime.
Farmersinitiallyfearedthatthegolden-coloredspreadwouldruinthem;laterthey
would march and protest for a ban on anything resembling butter. Of course, mar-
garine smuggling started up (kinda lacks the romanticism of moonshine running,
doesn't it?), and those consumers watching their diets would cross the Illinois line
to the “margarine villages” that sprouted alongside border service stations. Butter's
mostpartisansupporterwasGordonRoseleip,aRepublicansenatorfromDarlington,
whoserantings against oleocouldoccasionally overshadowJosephMcCarthy'santi-
Communistspewings.Butthegoodsenatordoomedthebutterindustryin1965when
heagreedtotakeablindtastetestbetweenbutterandoleo.Andlost.Hisfamilylater
admitted that he had been unknowingly consuming oleo for years; he weighed 275
pounds and his family had switched, hoping to control his weight.
And a note: “brown mumbler” means any “brown” drink made with whiskey or brandy.
You'll hear it in northern Wisconsin.
BEER
Wisconsinites do not drink more beer (per capita, anyway) than residents of any other state
in the country: Nevada does (though that number is admittedly tourist-heavy). Alas, the
days of quaffing a brew with breakfast and finding a
biergarten
on every street corner are
long gone.
Wisconsin beer drinking began with the hordes of European immigrants. The earliest
brewery has been traced back to an 1835 operation in Mineral Point, but there may have
been one a few years before that, though what most early southwestern Wisconsin brew-
